Abstract:

Allama Muhammad Iqbal was clearly one of the most dynamic thinkers of our times. He is the best intelligible Muslim response to Modernity that the Islamic world has produced in the 20th century. What made him stand out from others was the depth of critical thinking in his approach to Islam’s heritage. Iqbal explored the tensions between Islamic tradition and modernity at a profounder level than most. In his period he touched on topics that are basic issues for us now, such as Ijtihad, Islam and democracy. His response in the society has three dimensions: The first one is a creative engagement with the conceptual model of modernism at a sophisticated and philosophical level through his prose writings, mainly his The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam which present his basic philosophic insights. The second one is his Urdu and Persian poetry which is the best embodiment of poetically mediated thought, squarely in the traditional continuity of Islamic literature and perhaps the finest flowering of wisdom poetry, or contemplative poetry or inspired poetry in the modern times. The third one is a political activist and social reformer, rising up to his social responsibility, with his calling at a critical phase of history. Iqbal wrote several articles about religious questions which were the most critical issues in his period as well. These articles were read regularly in the form of sermon in Lahore, Madras, Hyderabad and Aligarh from 1928 to 1930 and afterwards published as a compiled book in the name of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in 1930. The Ijtihad which is the one of sensitive topic of this book was the most important topic in Islamic law. But his writings on this topic didn’t take acceptance as much as deserved. The reason of this was the difficulty of this subject. Honestly the issue was difficult and to understand it wasn’t easy. The second reason of this difficulty was that in this article Iqbal was addressing those persons who had knowledge about western thoughts. Iqbal had knowledge about western philosophy extensively as well and was able to give its references with fluency. Consequently the people, who don’t know anything about the tradition of western philosophy, weren’t able to understand his speech on this topic. Thus the first aim of this article is to understand of Iqbal’s thoughts on Ijtihad and then tell them peoples as much as possible

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